Twitter Sharing Outpaces Other Platforms as Email Falls

In the first quarter of 2014, Twitter sharing is up by 43 percent, while email falls 25 percent.

Social sharing on Twitter has outpaced other platforms, while email has taken a large nosedive, according to ShareThis’s Q1 2014 report.

The figures for the first quarter of the year showed that sharing via Twitter increased by 43 percent, compared to a much lower 15 percent recorded in the previous quarter. Meanwhile, email sharing saw a significant drop of 25 percent and was the only channel to show a decrease.

Reddit came in second place with 25 percent growth compared to the previous quarter, while Facebook sat in third position with a 14 percent growth. Interestingly, this is a significant fall compared to 2013's Q4 figures, where Facebook reported a 57 percent increase.

LinkedIn was the next contender with a 12 percent growth, followed by Pinterest at 5 percent.

"Twitter surged so fast in sharing this quarter because it added image functionality, which definitely helps improve consumer engagement," says Jeremy Flynn, account manager of publisher services and business development at ShareThis. "We also saw a pickup in mobile devices across social platforms. Twitter is a very active social network for mobile users."

Sharing from mobile devices increased by 28 percent in Q1 2014, compared to 11 percent from desktop. Mobile now accounts for the majority of social actions, the report says.

ShareThis also analyzed the demographic of sharers. It found that shares coming from the Hispanic community increased the most across every platform, with the exception of Facebook, and saw a 42 percent growth on Twitter alone. On Facebook, the African-American community showed a slightly larger increase (20 percent), with the Hispanic community following behind at 19 percent.

The report also showed that Twitter and Pinterest appeal to the 31- to 35-year-old age group, while LinkedIn and Facebook attract an older audience of more than 40 years old. By contrast, Reddit is popular with users less than 30 years old.

Based on the findings of this report, Flynn points out that while consumer sharing behavior may change quarterly, in general 55 to 60 percent of sharing comes from females. This is with the exception of Reddit, where sharing comes primarily from a male audience.

"If marketers want to reach out to male consumers, Reddit might be a channel to go down," Flynn tells ClickZ. "If you want to engage consumers on mobile, Twitter can do a lot of great things," he notes.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Yuyu Chen is a junior reporter at ClickZ. Her work has appeared in Local East Village, New York Daily News and Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce website. Yuyu received her M.A. in Business and Economic Reporting from New York University in May, 2013.

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